3/5/07: Billy The Mime “The Abortion” (2005)It’s no secret that this site is generally pro-choice—or it’s no more secret than anything else said amongst our obscurity. Still, we respect the anti-abortion opposition. It’s certainly not easy for them to find entertainment that bolsters their opinion. Not to generalize, but it seems unlikely that many of them will ever stumble upon “The Abortion” by
Billy the Mime.
We only discovered this short work amongst the extras on the DVD release of
The Aristocrats. For those who missed the hype,
The Aristocrats is a documentary in which comedians discuss a legendary dirty joke about a family that does a filthy stage act. We’re fans of the people behind the project—
Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza—and the film includes many fine entertainers.
We just couldn’t enjoy the thing. We first saw
The Aristocrats shortly after reading
How To Cook Your Daughter, in which Jessica Hendra tells of her childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her hipster humorist father. (No surprise that her dad is now a big hit at the Huffington Post.) We weren’t in the mood for a bunch of cool stand-up comics joking about underage kids having sex with family members.
Our favorite telling of the joke was by Billy the Mime—partly because he couldn’t detail the family aspects. Also, he made the bestiality part seem cute. It was the first time we’d seen Billy perform. We knew of his stage work, but we had our doubts about the charms of a mime doing his take on, say, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Now we’re willing to see more of the guy. “The Abortion” has Billy playing three characters: The Doctor, The Woman, and The Fetus. It begins as the distraught Woman pays the greedy Doctor, and continues as the Doctor aborts the Fetus—who’s seen suffering a horrific and confusing death.
Then the Doctor disposes of the Fetus. At this point, we’re expecting a punch line. Instead, the sketch ends as the Woman prepares to leave, and stops to throw a kiss to the trashcan that holds the remains of her aborted child.
It’s a stunning piece by any standards, and even more amazing in the aftermath of
The Aristocrats. It might be that the producers wanted to show their audience a truly daring stage act.
Make it your own: You can find plenty of used
Aristocrats DVDs
for cheap. It’s worth purchasing one just to see “The Abortion.” Then you can put it up on YouTube.
